Newsprint
by QueenAnne
Summary: Tristan and Rory, in black and white. Reading between the lines, they found the shades of grey.
1. Blackened pearls

Newsprint  
  
by Queen Anne  
  
Common disclaimer applies. For use, please email. This is just a plain little novella, with short chapters, but it's something nonetheless. For the people who have been begging me to write, and for Luce, whose stories (or lack thereof) always drive me crazy with jealous inspiration.  
  
"I didn't think it would come to this," she told him, looking up from her perch on a neatly stacked pile of coats. Twirling light brown hair around a slender finger, she gazed softly at him from her seat as he searched for his on a nearby rack.  
  
"Didn't think it would come to what?" he asked over one smooth shoulder. Even his shoulders said "I'm a smart ass rebellious rich boy, don't mess with me." She sighed.  
  
"I don't know. But I feel like something's happening and I'm not quite sure what it is." It was an unusual feeling, that sense that something was going one and yet she wasn't ever quite sure if it was a feeling at all, or maybe just-life.  
  
"Do you know what I think?"  
  
"No, tell." Her chin balanced on her hand, and she held her head up to look at the back of his blonde, unruly hair.  
  
"Life knows what's supposed to happen. And you know what's supposed to happen, you either just don't see it or you don't want to. And that, my dear," he threw back at her, a little mockery underlying in his lilting tone, "is why you feel like that. Common nature of man, or something like that."  
  
She pondered that for a moment, rolled it around in her mind, played with it, toying with it, contemplating it as if it was an orb of thought that had just dropped into her hands, ponderous and heavy and feather light and wistful at the same time. Christmas music, something turned tastefully into a waltz, came from the ballroom, reminding her why she was here, why she was with him, why they weren't at school but on vacation instead.  
  
"Why are you looking for your coat again?" she asked abruptly, dropping the ball and letting it roll to the back corner of her mind. It was too heavy to play with now.  
  
"We're leaving," he told her. "It's about time we did." His hand fell onto the shoulder of a black wool coat, one that matched the midnight black of his tuxedo perfectly, and he pulled it off the hanger and onto his back in one smooth motion, neglecting the care and keeping of such an expensive coat.  
  
"I'd ask why you come to these, if you hate them, but I know," she told him softly as he handed her her coat, which had been hanging next to his. The delicate crème wool clashed with his so extremely, the silk lining smoothing against her skin left bare by the inadequacies that came with wearing a formal dress.  
  
"You're biting your nails again, Rory," he said abruptly as they pushed through the doors that led to the cool night air.  
  
"I don't know why it bothers you so much. They are, after all, my nails," she told him pointedly. He didn't look at her, walked ahead of her out to the lawn. Finally he stopped, and she caught up to him, stopping right against his shoulder as if he was protecting her from something in the darkness in front of them. And as they walked toward the darkness of the manicured lawns the light from the ballroom splayed onto their retreating backs, his arm was around her, and against the crème there was a line of solid black. 


	2. Dizzying bourbon

Newsprint  
  
By Queen Anne  
  
July 5, 2003  
  
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"I made it," she said. "I made it." He nodded. She sat by the window, looking out into the bustling street below.   
  
"Why aren't you somewhere, out with all the rest of our friends? Getting drunk, partying…isn't that the type of thing you do after you graduate? I mean…" He held up an empty glass with traces of bourbon at the bottom.   
  
"Don't drink on your own, Tristan. If you're going to get drunk, at least do it with someone else around," she laughed.  
  
"You're someone else," he pointed out, practically laying in his massive desk chair. "Come to think of it, why are you here, and not out getting drunk and partying?" he threw her own words back at her. She eyed the glass, how the angles threw the light from the window onto his face and around his office, little drops of shine that colored the contours of his face.  
  
"I don't drink, though sometimes I wish I did. Today would have been a nice day to do it. Perfect. Harvard…it seems like such a nice thing to drink to. And leaving it seems like an even better thing to drink to, and…wait, why aren't you somewhere else?" she asked again, remembering.  
  
"Because I had to come here."  
  
A boy in an adult's office.   
  
"Aren't you happy?" she questioned him, turning her gaze from him to the light, looking down to see the people, the lives that ran around in such a hurry, when in the office it seemed as though life had slowed to a staggering heart beat.   
  
"I have you and my bourbon and my company, and I just graduated from Harvard against the orders of my father. And in fifteen minutes, I'll join the bustling group of friends who have congregated in the lobby downstairs to look for us and laugh to my hearts content. So yes, I am happy."  
  
His father's desk was tall, ornate, built for a king, a DuGrey. She liked to sit on it, move his papers out of the way and perch on top of it. She crossed her legs at the ankles gracefully, her hair pinned up beautifully, her navy strapless dress accentuating her grace until he could swear she was Audrey Hepburn in a tea-length princess dress. Her hair was the same color as the bourbon, and it swirled atop her head dizzyingly. To pull a pin there, a clasp there, and it would come bounding down in curling waves in his hands.   
  
He wanted her, there was no doubt, and always had. Had since high school, had since he kissed her, had since he returned from exile, since he found her at the high school graduation, had every day of every year they had gone to college. And she no longer knew it. Once, she was aware, of his gaze on her, and what it meant. Now, she wasn't sure it was anything but the light, and he didn't quite know how to tell her.  
  
As she sat there, a vision, he surveyed the ornate class that covered every inch of the massive office. Leather, crystal, dark polished wood that ran together with rich eggshell carpet. And her in the middle of it, of his office. May his father rest in peace, but he was left a life that seemed too big for him when she was in it.   
  
And then she started taking down her hair, pulling a pin out at random. When the first long strand of gilded dark brown hair fell in a cascading curl and hit her shoulder, he poured another glass of bourbon and downed it in a second.  
  
"Let's go," he said, before she sat there any longer.  
  
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Thank you for reading! The next installment comes soon. --Annest 


	3. Burgundy Brocade

Newsprint  
  
By Queen Anne  
  
August 8, 2003  
  
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The air conditioner was broken again, and she couldn't possibly stay in the house until Luke had the time to fix it. She found him at the club, fending off women, fending off business, fending off his mother and her ever-present force.  
  
"You have a pool in your building," she said, ignoring the water he splashed onto her as he toweled off his hair. "Why aren't you there?"  
  
"What, and miss the chance to see my darling mother as well as the most eligible debutantes from the last four years? I think not, Rory," he grinned, shrugging on the french blue shirt she held out to him.  
  
"Yes, I'm sure that the club's absolutely enthralling. I love that my grandma makes me appear here. Lord, the people are terrible."  
  
"That's your point of view, darling," he told her as they walked arm in arm to the clubhouse. "I think that Muffy and Buffy are absolutely enchanting." Innuendo did happen to be Tristan's premier hobby. She laughed, the sound floating up gracefully as they walked close together, heads leaned conspiratorily into each other.  
  
Tristan was silent for a second. Then, "Mother wants me to get married."  
  
Rory stopped. The world stopped, he stopped, for a split second. Recovering, she grinned. "What if you tell her you're running away to join a colony of Buddhist monks living in Bora Bora?"  
  
He didn't laugh. He repeated it. "Mother wants me to get married."  
  
Something inside of Rory felt that was wrong, but she didn't know what it was. Something inside of her said he couldn't get married. But . . . it was just because she knew that him getting married would change things, would change them. "Do you want to?"  
  
"It doesn't matter. I have to." They were in the clubhouse now, and being ushered very quickly to a private lounge on the second floor. Rory sat down, he poured a drink. Drank deeply, then another. She grabbed the second one out of his hand and downed it. It burned, but so did his gaze sometimes, and she could control the drink.  
  
"What do you mean, you have to?" she scoffed. Tristan was Tristan, he was not a puppet. He didn't do anything he didn't want to, and she . . . well, that's what she hoped. The couch she sat on was burgundy, a dark, muted passion, soft brocade, and achingly comfortable. She wished he would sit down next to her, it seemed so weird.  
  
"My father. You know, Rory. I . . . I could never say no to mother in the first place. Now, there's no way not to. I've got to do it."  
  
"Yes, I guess you do." Then he did sit next to her, and kissed her softly on the cheek. As he did, Rory moved instinctively to the side, capturing his lips with hers, moving against them softly, a whisper of a kiss, barely there at all. A light kiss, a brush of the lips, and she looked up. "Tris . . . I . . ." she breathed, and then Tristan was crushing his lips to hers, powerless passion pouring through to her, his tongue sweeping at the line of her mouth, begging entrance, seeking closeness, and she obliged on a moan, opening to him, almost choking on the emotion that flowed through her. Shocked, for a moment, and slightly still, she wrapped her arms around his neck as he leaned her back against the supple arm of the couch, and the feelings that shot through her body make her gasp, made her moan and move against him, surprising him, surprising her, and her eyes opened to see his looking down at her.  
  
"Rory, I . . . I'm sorry." She was a virgin, still, he knew, but still again, it hurt. He couldn't do it. To Muffy or Buffy out there, he almost laughed, a fling in one of the private lounges would be fun, sport, nothing more. But Rory . . . it would hurt him almost as much as it would hurt Rory.  
  
"Tristan, don't apologize." She smoothed her hair. "So, who are you going to marry?" she asked quickly, looking down at the burgundy brocade wistfully.  
  
Tristan closed his eyes, turned away from her. Almost cried.  
  
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Please review, and I promise I'll try and update more often. -- Annest 


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